Honky-tonk healing can take many forms. It can flow from a bottle, spring forth from late-night soulful commiserations or emanate from a stage. Listening to country artist David Ball regenerates, rejuvenates and resuscitates. Perhaps there’s a wealth of intertwining factors that makes his music so restorative. One suspects, though, that it’s as simple as the fact that the “man” comes through in the music.

Ball displays honesty, an understated humor, graciousness and a noticeable lack of pretentiousness whether discussing songwriting, videos, touring, or the music industry. He has written or co-written a majority of the songs on his three CD releases and has stayed true to the honky-tonk style that developed in Texas dancehalls.

“I feel like my style is already imprinted on me,” said Ball. “Musically, I’ve not tried to change it.”
However, he noted, “There are some different songs on this new record (Play). You don’t ever really write the same song twice. A new song will take you in a new direction. If I like the song a lot, whether it fits into a certain slot or not, I’ll do it.”

“I’m Just a Country Boy" is a really different song, as is "Hasta Luego, My Love," although I didn’t write that, I’ve written a lot of Tex-Mex stuff. On the first album, the experimental song was 12-12-84. We just decided to put it on there at the end and see what happened. It was musically different than "Thinkin’ Problem" and some of the traditional songs.

A very traditional song on the new CD is the haunting "Going Someplace to Forget." Ball spoke from the heart about the need for traditional country music to be heard and why he included that song on Play.
“It (traditional music) has got to come back,” he said. “I wanted to put that song on the record because I miss it. I’m trying to get out there and put that song in front of people -- it’s kind of a classic. I try to write music that has a timeless feel to it. It’s not so much an ‘in your face’ kind of music that beats you over the head, it’s kind of mid-tempo. One day, hopefully, I’ll break radio with some of that type of music.”

Songwriting

Songwriting is a big part of Ball’s musical life. It can be difficult and tedious but also rewarding.
“There are a lot of songs that I haven’t written, that I think about and want to write,” noted Ball. “Sometimes there are lyrical ideas and sometimes there are musical things I want to try and it’s important for me to pursue that. If I let it slide, something else will take its place. If someone told me, ‘you’ve got two months and we want 10 songs written and done’, I could do it. I’d have to work at it every day but I could do it.”

“When I can, I love to write by myself, but sometimes I have to think about it the day before and say to myself, ‘you are going to write a song, by yourself, tomorrow!’ You have to prepare for it but as long as you’re making any kind of progress with the songs it’s really pretty easy. It’s a four or five hour process -- I can get started on a song and get to a good spot where I like it and then come back the next day.”

Some songs don’t come as easily. "Thinkin’ Problem" for example, was a song that evolved over a long period of time. “Allen Shamblin came in with a title and asked, ‘what do you think of this idea of a thinking problem,’” Ball said. “We batted it around and together we got this great verse, ‘I wake up and right away...’, and I thought, man, this is so good!” But Ball and Shamblin struggled with the subsequent verses and the song was put on the back-burner.

“I thought the song was okay, but also thought maybe it could be great. I came up with that intro, ‘YES, I ADMIT...’, which is half-time, when I was playing down in Texas a lot. Eventually, after working on the song on and off for over a year, Ball was satisified with the sound and it became the title cut on his first CD.

Singing Style

As a recording artist, Ball exhibits piercing vocals that ensure he will never be mistaken for any other artist. What does his voice sound like?

“Tight. Hard. I sing loud, I sing hard,” Ball noted.

“Very loud, very strong,” agreed road manager Tracy Burton, laughing and adding, “in technical terms, he has a ‘bump’ at 1600 cycles. The word ‘pure’ comes up a lot”

“I grew up singing a lot of hill-folk tunes, a lot of church music,” Ball said, “Back then I was kind of a tenor. I don’t know if I’d qualify now, my voice is kind of rangy..I’m a rangy kind of singer -- an Irish tenor.”

On the Road

Ball has toured extensively in support of each of his three CDs, often opening for well-established big-name acts in large arenas, including Brooks & Dunn, Dwight Yoakam, and Alabama.

“The first big tour we did was with Brooks & Dunn for about four months,” Ball said. “'Thinkin’ Problem' was brand new. That was maybe a little more of an all around country music audience than the one for Dwight Yoakam (1996 tour). He is such a big star -- I found people would come to the show, not so much for the musical experience but because they wanted to see Dwight. Like you would want to see the President.”

“I felt like they were digging my music but at the same time they were kind of looking at their watches,” Ball reflected. “I’m not sure about the Alabama crowd. I try to focus musically and I know that the audience is out there if I can just hook up with it. One day maybe I’ll do my own thing, have my own audience. I guess that’s a goal. Right now, I DO prefer playing a club that has my crowd and I get to play the kind of music that my folks like to hear.”

Entertainer vs. Musician

David Ball believes the music IS the show and thus hasn’t added any frills to his stage act. He’ll occasionally wander left or right from the microphone, hoisting the guitar a little but he soon settles back down at center stage. Ball knows there are people available to help “build” a show, pacing it with peaks, valleys, and a performance-ending climax, but doesn’t feel he needs to do that.

“If I’m doing a wide variety of gigs like working for Dwight Yoakam or Alabama, I’ll tailor a set a little bit to try and find the crowd some way,” Ball said, however, “I wouldn’t want to go to a show and see it choreographed -- it’s a real turn off for me. We don’t present ourselves that way at all. We get up there and get into the song and then let the song take it from there. It’s not a pep rally. It’s not a cheerleading thing - everybody get on your feet and clap your hands. If that happens, great. Musically, we’ll get people excited enough to where they’re up and clapping, but to sit there and wear them out about it, ‘COME ON EVERYBODY, ARE WE HAVING A GOOD TIME?’ I wouldn’t. If I was in the audience, well, sometimes it’s nice to sit back and just listen to the music.

Videos

Ball says he enjoys doing videos, especially when working with a director he trusts, who understands his music. Sometimes, though, things can be more difficult. He spoke about filming a sequence on a subway when the director asked him to take over a corner of the car.

“The director wanted me to sit there, with my feet up, taking all this room, slouched in this corner. There were all these people and it was just an awkward thing. There was somebody sitting right there and my feet were in her lap. I knew I would just never sit like that for two minutes while riding on a subway with people. It would just be rude.”

On the other hand, “'The Thinkin’ Problem' video was great because it was the first one and we were up in New York with a great crew,” Ball said.

Ball also feels that videos, while they help introduce a song to a large audience, have become way too formulaic and wonders, “Is the country audience ready for a different kind of video, not the guy in the cowboy hat standing out on the rocks? There’s so many that look like Chevrolet commercials, and musically, sound like Chevrolet commercials.”

The Future

Ball admits his music is not as “current” as others’ and smiles, “I don’t like anything new. I’d buy old shoes if people wouldn’t think it was weird.”

Yet....

“I’m working on this thing where I set my hair on fire, which I think would be cool,” Ball said. “I’m not going to run around like an idiot. I’m just going to very quietly set my head on fire and start singing, ‘YES, I ADMIT...’. It could happen.”

Say it ain’t so, David!

While trying to capture radio airplay IS frustrating, Ball most likely will not resort to the sort of measures he joked about above. "Watching My Baby Not Coming Back," Ball’s latest single release, though not charting as high as he would have liked, did receive airplay, especially on the non-Billboard reporting stations.

Even so, “It’s a whole new thing,” Ball said. “Now, we’ve got songs and everybody likes them but it’s still, ‘sorry, we can’t play them’." Three years ago, it was, ‘naw, we just don’t like them.’”

“I just focus on what I’m doing, knowing that I’ve got a lot of music I want to get out there, ” Ball philosophized. “I’m approaching maybe some of my best work. Country music will continue to evolve through me, on my terms, MY country music, not somebody else’s country music.”

Whew! Okay, this interviewer is starting to feel a little better now. But...

If you’re having one of those bad days, here’s some advice. Take one one rangy, hard-singing Irish tenor, one guitar, a handful of timeless country tunes and mix (don’t shake!). Relax and listen. Repeat as needed. This home-remedy will have you fixed up in no time!

David Ball at the Bluebird Cafe, Fan Fair

Mountain West Music 2002